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Dondero: Cardamom is featured in this Indian sweet

“Carrot halva,” which I make more often than the others, is a fluffy sort of carrot and milk fudge scented with cardamom, a warmly aromatic spice.

Another is “shahi tukra” (royal toast), bread squares fried in clarified butter then soaked in a sweet syrup of cooked-down milk scented with cardamom.

My third, “kheer,” or Indian rice pudding, is silky and soup-like, made from rice cooked with milk, sugar, salt — and cardamom.

One other classical Indian sweet I’ve made in the past is “goolab jamun.” But that’s elaborate to prepare, calorie-intensive and requires hard-to-find whole milk powder. It’s like a heavy Dunkin’ Donuts munchkin with concentrated milk as the principal ingredient. It’s deep-fried in oil, then floats in a luscious syrup scented with rose water and (wait for it!) cardamom.

But back to carrot halva.

As a kid, I encountered a sticky-dry, crumbly “Jewish” candy-like treat called “halvah.” It was made from tahini — finely ground sesame seeds — and honey.

Later, in Asia, I had many types of Indian halva, or “haluwa,” made variously from semolina, carrots, pumpkin or gourd, ground almonds or even from cornstarch. Whatever the ingredients, the confection was always sweet.

The origins of the word “halva” indicate the sweet’s history. It entered English in the mid-19th century from Yiddish, appearing thus to have been introduced by central and eastern European Jews.

But, the word entered Yiddish from Romanian, where in turn it had come from the Turkish “helva.”

However, neither the word nor the sweet were originally Turkish. Ultimately, both came from the Arabs. The Arabic name transliterates into the Roman alphabet as “al halwa,” meaning sweet confection.

Some Indian carrot halva, or “gajar ka halwa,” is made into small, firm cakes. Other versions are softer and fluffier, like a dry pudding. That’s the kind I make.

Typically, carrot halva is garnished with pistachios, almonds or cashews. In India, it also may be topped by a small sheet of vanishingly thin silver foil.

The carrots shrink down during cooking. The recipe makes enough for 6-8 persons — you do not eat a lot of it. Leftovers keep well, refrigerated, and make for delicious nibbling.